Sat 4/5 @ 7PM
Pennsylvania’s Donnie Iris and the Cruisers have over the past 40-plus years built a following in northeast Ohio almost as big as the one they have in western Pennsylvania. The 82-year-old singer first made his mark with the Jaggerz, who had a hit in 1970 with “The Rapper” (it had nothing to do with rap as we know it today), before hooking up with Cleveland keyboard player/songwriter Mark Avsec and forming the Cruisers, with Avsec bringing in drummer Kevin Valentine who played with him in Jonah Koslen’s Breathless, and adding guitarist Marty Lee and bassist Albritton McLain. The Iris/Avsec-penned song “Ah! Leah” in 1981 put them on the map and they’ve performed ever since. In Cleveland, they frequently opened to the Michael Stanley band and Michael Stanley’s Resonators, giving them a built-in audience in this area.
When they perform at the Kent Stage as a belated celebration of Iris’s 82nd birthday (February 28), they’ll be bringing two guest drummers: Canton’s Joe Vitale, a baby of 75, who has played with Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm, Crosby Stills and Nash, Dan Fogelberg, the Eagles and Peter Frampton, among others, and his son, Joe Vitale Jr, who fronts his own band Ravenwood.
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